¦ Dr. Joshi, you are here for a project in collaboration with the government. Can you tell us what it’s all about?

We’re here to conduct a capacity building programme regarding international business in Mauritius and, this was a decision taken at the Indo-African forum. And the government of India has made unilateral commitment for capacity building across African countries. Our specialization is in international business.

¦ And in concrete terms how are you intending to help?

We have already carried out the programme for government officials, diplomats, exporters, entrepreneurs and aid associations in Mauritius. With this programme, we have given them understanding of various areas of international business, international trade, international marketing and international finance. What is happening is that Mauritius is importing a lot of goods and exporting much less.

Although you are doing very well in tourism and financial services, with the slowing down of the economy in Europe and the US, Mauritian enterprises and the Mauritian government need to look for other countries. We have tried to give the officials key insights into what is happening in the global business environment and the key issues for Mauritius under the World Trade Organisation line. With the multilateral trading system coming into existence, there are implications for Mauritian products for export.

¦ Why aren’t we exporting more? What are our weaknesses?

The size of the country is a weakness. So the country needs to derive some opportunities. Mauritius has been an agricultural country initially largely based on sugar production and very little on fishing. The weakness is that though sugarcane constitutes an even larger part of this, the whole contribution of agriculture to the economy is not more than 4%. That is not enough.

¦ How can you develop agriculture when the land is so limited?

Look at the case of Hong Kong and Singapore which are smaller countries than Mauritius.

¦ Hong Kong is close to mainland China.

Yes, Mauritius has a little disadvantage but it has to focus on the high value added products. You need to have an industry where the government of Mauritius can import raw materials from other African countries because of your proximity, and do the processing here. Not planting, but manufacturing.

Planting in the long run will have its limitations. Producers or cultivators on the sugarcane farms are dependent on demand and supply patterns. You have to battle demand and supply and enter those products where you can make a steady profit.

Even the textile industry must go up the value chain. The image of Mauritian products must be raised in the international market.

¦ How can the image be raised? Isn’t it the product itself and the history behind it that make the image?

There are two things. History is one but 200 years ago, nobody had heard about products from the US. Now products and computers coming from the US are considered superior. India and China were great societies many centuries ago but relatively recently, they have declined. Japan is a great example: 80 or 90 years ago, Japanese products were considered of very inferior quality. It was only after World War II that Japan changed.

Now all consumer electronics from Japan are considered of very high quality. In fact, after World War II, when the country was devastated, it sent its people to department stores to learn how to market.

¦ How do you improve your image? Suppose tomorrow we decided to go into the production of wine and champagne. How to go about beating the French who have years of history and an image?

Champagne falls under the rules of the WTO. You cannot have champagne outside the champagne-producing areas of France according to international law. The wine market globally is very fragmented. Mauritius should try to identify a product in international business. Financial services, medical tourism or educational tourism are possibilities. Then you need connectivity as the government is planning to become a gateway for Africa with SADC and COMESA etc. and to become a gateway, you need connectivity.

¦ I don’t know if you are aware but Air Mauritius has just suspended its flights to several countries.

You know this is the problem. Routes will not be profitable when there is no traffic and traffic will come only when you have more lines. In case you need to go to India or Singapore, your f rst choice is Emirates because that’s where you get connectivity. Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore and Bangkok are connecting hubs.

With the strategic location of Mauritius, there is more potential for it to become a connecting hub too.

¦ How do you connect when you’re running a loss on many destinations? Do we keep these routes running?

No, you cannot run a business on a loss. What you need is comprehensive planning. Maybe a public-private partnership, finding more routes and finding out where there is a gap or untapped potential. Without connectivity, an airline cannot prosper. Air France gives a lot of connectivity to West Africa. Johannesburg basically connects Europe, South Africa and the rest of Africa. Addis does the same. As a result, Addis Ababa is now the place where the African Union is headquartered.

You can make Mauritius a political gateway or an economic gateway. Without traffic you will lose, but traffic will only come when there is connectivity. It’s a chicken-and-egg story. But let’s take tourism. Tourism here is for the European tourist. Tourists from India, China and Malaysia do not come. They are aware of the limitations.

¦ What are the limitations?

People from the East like to eat late at night. In Mauritius, everything closes at 9pm. That will knock the product. Yes, you have wonderful boating and amazing underwater activities, alright. But from the East, only newlyweds come here on honeymoons because newlywed couples need seclusion. The problem is the family tourists will go to Bangkok, Singapore etc. Nightlife doesn’t mean that you have casinos and discos and all of that. Nightlife means that you should have shopping experiences. If I come with my family, I have nothing to do in the evening. Three days ago, we went to a place where we were told there was a lot of nightlife but when we arrived there, there wasn’t a single restaurant open. Family entertainment means entertainment parks for children, shopping, food outlets and things like that. How long can one stay in the sea? For European tourists, it’s the sunshine that’s the attraction, because in Europe there isn’t enough of that. So when they come here and take off their clothes, it is a treat. Don’t expect an Indian lady to take off her clothes and lie in the sea. If you market it like that, it will never work in India or China.

¦ Are you saying that we have lessons to learn from Bangkok?

(Laughs) Let’s forget about Bangkok. Look at Singapore. You know they do not have their own drinking water or fruits. So they went for technology-intensive industries. I mean it is understandable to make the leap from agriculture to industrialization, but now I think that time has come to recognize scarcity of resources and scarcity of land so industrialization can only be high tech products. High tech industries mean high value products, high value products mean low unit value.

For a low unit value product, the cost of transportation is less, value addition is more and hence, profitability is more. You need to invite knowledge-intensive workers and high capital-intensive industry to Mauritius. That in the long term I think is what is going to help.

By Touria PRAYAG (l’express Weekly)

Touria PRAYAG